How individual species and entire ecosystems will respond to future climate change are among the most pressing questions facing ecologists. Past biodiversity dynamics recorded in the paleoecological archives show a broad array of responses, yet …
Climate refugia, locations where taxa survive periods of regionally adverse climate, are thought to be critical for maintaining biodiversity through the glacial–interglacial climate changes of the Quaternary. A critical research need is to better …
Priority question exercises are becoming an increasingly common tool to frame future agendas in conservation and ecological science. They are an effective way to identify research foci that advance the field and that also have high policy and …
In December 2012 there will be a two-day workshop in Oxford (UK) to discuss the 50 most pressing questions in palaeoecology. I am really fortunate to having been selected to participate and share two days with eminent palaeoecologists and scientists from related disciplines.
Although global warming is currently threatening biodiversity, we know from past records that cooling periods can also be disastrous in terms of extinction rates. During the Eocene, about 50 million years ago, the Earth was so warm that there were no permanent ice caps in the poles, and warm-loving subtropical species thrived at quite high latitudes.
Climate on Earth has always been changing. Despite decades of investigation, our limited knowledge of the ecological and evolutionary effects of climate changes often translates into uncertain predictions about the impact of future climates on …
The Mediterranean region is a renowned hotspot of plant biodiversity. It hosts some 25000 plant species, about half of them being endemics. Some species have been present for many million years, or even originated here, whilst others arrived much more ‘recently’.